Never Use a Chicken and Other Stories (6 page)

Don’t Forget Cigars

Who says smoking kills you? If I hadn’t remembered her cigars, I wouldn’t be alive to be telling you this story.

“Don’t forget cigars,” she had said.

I
almost
did forget. I remembered when I was halfway down the mall, just past the travel agency and before the third jewelry store, the place opposite the ladies wear store. There’s a kiosk in the middle of the mall there where they sell lottery tickets and cigarettes and tobacco. The area was quiet at that hour of the morning, not many people around, which may be why the sight of the kiosk triggered my memory.

“
Don’t forget cigars
.”

I was almost past the place when I remembered. I made a right turn to go over to buy cigars and saved my life. First thing I noticed was the expression on the face of the man looking at me. When I saw the barrel of that .38 raising up to point at my ribs, I jumped. Jumped right over the side of the kiosk, into the cigarette display, into the man behind the counter busy selling something to a customer. His yelling was louder than the crash of both of us falling to the floor under the cigarettes and other stuff that came down on top. The screams of some old ladies who saw the crash were even louder. The few people around made up in noise what they lacked in numbers. Not that I had time to listen too carefully.

The guy with the gun didn’t wait to help us up. He left. At the time, I didn’t know who he was or where he went, and I didn’t hang around to find out, either. As soon as I got my brain working again, which took five or ten seconds before I realized I wasn’t going to die after all because the jump and the crash spoiled his aim and he couldn’t shoot, I realized he would be gone. So I pushed my hand into the face of the cigar-stand guy and that stopped his yelling. I could see other faces peering down at us over the counter, but I didn’t wait to see if they were faces I should recognize. I just kept shoving the kiosk operator’s face, which made him squirm away from me giving me a chance to get untangled from him and get free from the mess of stuff that had fallen with us. It took him until I was almost on my feet before he began yelling again.

“Hey! What’s going on? What the Hell do you think you’re doing? You trying to get us killed or something? What’re you doing jumping on me? Look at the mess in here! Hey! You! Where’re you going? Get back here! Hey! Somebody grab that guy! Hey! Hey!”

I didn’t wait to hear any more. In fact I’m not even sure those were his exact words. By the time he got that far I was down the mall heading for the exit nearest the place I had left my car in the parking lot. I wasn’t running. That would attract too much attention and most people were looking toward the man who was yelling and waving his arms. But I was walking fast. I didn’t look around to see what was happening at the cigarette and lottery kiosk. I figured I had won the lottery by jumping over the guy’s counter back there and I wasn’t planning to push my luck.

Just as I was about to go through the outside door to the parking lot my brain kicked back in gear again and I made a fast U-turn back into the mall. That move almost knocked over a couple of senior citizens loaded down with packages, most of which they dropped. I didn’t know nice old people used gutter language like that. Especially women. Maybe they weren’t your typical nice old couple. Such people don’t use the kind of words they used. To give them credit, they weren’t expecting the sudden change of direction I made, but really, when I was a little boy, my mother would have washed my mouth out with soap if I had used words like that.

The reason for my abrupt change in direction was the sudden realization that heading for the parking lot was not a very bright move. In fact it was a very
dumb
move. Whoever the man was who had pointed that .38 at me a few minutes before, he obviously knew I was in the mall. He must have followed me there from somewhere, so he also knew where my car was. He would have to be pretty stupid not to go back there and wait for me.
I
would have to be pretty dim to go back there and give him a target. I know that I
am
not the sharpest knife in the drawer sometimes—there are those who would say most of the time—but not this time. I figured that my safest spot was in the mall surrounded by people. People who could be witnesses in the event of gun shots. Now that I think about it some more, that had not been terribly safe so far. Right then I still wasn’t thinking too clearly.

In the donut shop beside the supermarket I sat in a booth where I could watch the door and let a cup of coffee warm my shaking hands. I thought about the past fifteen minutes. “Who wants me dead?” I asked myself. Then, a second question. “
Why
does someone want me dead?” I asked myself the second question because I couldn’t answer the first question. I began looking for a third question because an answer for the second didn’t make an impression on my brain, either. There wasn’t any immediate third question rushing for an answer, so I reviewed the first and second questions with the same lack of success.

All that thinking about questions and non-answers managed to create some analysis so the exercise wasn’t totally lost. And the coffee did make my hands stop shaking. I got a second cup to give the hands something to do while the brain was trying to get organized. The first part worked. My hands had something to do. I had been straight—well, relatively straight—for the entire three months since I had left the prison. The couple of little jobs I had pulled were solo jobs and only brought in peanuts, insurance money you might say, so I couldn’t have been in the way of any mob activity. No. It wasn’t the local organization who wanted me dead so badly that they would have me killed in broad daylight in a shopping mall. I was pondering that proposition when the word “they” jumped out at me. Thinking can do that to me, interest me in the words that make up my thoughts. I guess that’s a good habit sometimes. This time, anyway.

They
, I thought. Maybe it isn’t “they.” Maybe it’s “he.” After a few minutes on that track, another light went on. Maybe, I thought, maybe it isn’t either “they” or he.” Maybe it’s “she.” Cherchez la femme, as they say.”

But what femme? Louise wouldn’t want to kill me. I spent the next few minutes thinking very kindly about Louise. If it hadn’t been for her wanting me to buy cigars, I wouldn’t be alive, would I?

Thinking about Louise and her cigars made me smile. Very few women smoke cigars. Louise smoked one a day. At dinner. I think she began doing it for effect, which was crazy because Louise didn’t need any special effects. Not too many women have all Louise’s effects! At least not organized the way she does. But she had smoked her one cigar a day for as many years as I had known her. That was about six. We had been living together for almost six years, minus the eighteen months I had been a guest of the county for that stupid job Harry loused up on me.

Anyway, not Louise. She was even more loving and great to be with after I got out than before I went in, if that was possible. I’m a lucky man to have a woman like Louise, I thought. The last three months had been great. That was why I had had to pull a couple of small jobs. Louise was worried about me and what would happen to her if I had got killed in prison. I tried to tell her that worrying like that was silly. Prison was no big deal. Do your time. Keep your nose clean. Stay out of the way of anybody who had set himself up to be a big shot. No problem. But you know women. They get their minds made up to something, they don’t change. So I took out the life insurance policies.

It was one of those television ads that did it. You’ve probably seen them, the ones that say no matter how old you are or what the state of your health is, you can buy life insurance with no medical exam, no questions asked. They give you a toll-free number to call. Well it was Louise who called my attention to the fact that three different companies were running those ads. We saw them one night while I was watching a ball game on the tube. Two baseball games and a basketball game, to be exact. This time of year there’s at least two sports going on and I switch channels watching parts of different games. So one night while I was switching channels we saw three of those life insurance commercials, one during each game. Louise wrote down the toll-free numbers.

It took her a while to wear me down. I’m in the age bracket where I could buy the maximum amount of coverage, a hundred grand. So that meant I could buy three hundred thousand in life insurance. Louise figured if I had that much coverage and she was the beneficiary, she wouldn’t worry so much if I went to prison again.

“Baby, I’m not going to prison again,” I told her.

“That’s what you said before,” she reminded me.

She had a point. I had said that. Of course I hadn’t figured on Harry’s stupidity, either. Louise didn’t think Harry was so stupid, and she said so. I didn’t argue. She wasn’t there when his stupidity brought the cops. How could she know? And like I already said, once women get their minds made up, that’s it. She had her mind made up that Harry wasn’t so stupid, and she had her mind made up that I might go back to prison and that I might get killed.

She also had her mind made up that I was going to get all that life insurance. So she called the toll-free numbers and I went out on a couple of jobs to pay the first premiums. Now if I kick off, she can be comfortable, she says.

So it wasn’t Louise. But what other woman? I don’t really know any other woman. I don’t know any man who would want me dead, either. Not even Harry. He didn’t get caught and I didn’t rat, even if it was his stupidity that got me caught. So I gave up on the “he” or “she” answer to the “who” question and went back to the “they.” No luck there either. My coffee cup was empty again, so I decided I ought to concentrate on another problem. I had to get out of that mall and get home without getting killed. I also had to do it without the car. Louise could pick it up later when she went to work. She’s hostess at a lounge, a real ritzy place, about five minutes from the mall.

I decided the safest thing to do would be to take the bus. The bus stop was just outside the north entrance to the mall, the opposite direction from the area where I had left the car. And a number eight bus stopped outside our apartment. If I waited for a number eight, I could ride home surrounded by people. That’s what I did. I had to wait about three-quarters of an hour for a number eight bus, but that was no big deal, either. I had plenty of time. I watched people while I leaned against the wall. I waited three-quarters of an hour. I was looking for anyone who showed any special interest in me. Apart from a couple of giggling teenage girls who seemed to have an interest in any male under forty who happened to cross their line of vision, I couldn’t see that anybody had any curiosity about my being alive at all.

The bus ride was the same way. Nobody paid any attention to me at all. I made the distance from the bus stop to the front door of the apartment building in something under thirty seconds. Louise was on the phone when I walked in. “Well, tell him to try again,” I heard her say. “I’m not paying for failure.” I heard her slam down the receiver just as I walked from the hallway into the bedroom where the phone was.

“Oh, I didn’t hear you come in.” She was smiles and hugs and oh, my goodness, what a welcome. I still get excited thinking about it. I managed to forget to ask who was on the phone. She didn’t even frown when I confessed to having forgotten cigars.

Louise was working three to eleven that evening so I was home alone. There was only one ball game on the television schedule for that evening. Wouldn’t you know, the game was rained out. No domed stadium in that city. I flipped channels but there wasn’t anything interesting. Finally, about nine-thirty, I decided it would be safe enough to go out. I decided to go down to the place where Louise worked and have a couple of drinks at the bar and drive her home. She would have the car. She had agreed to pick it up from the mall parking lot on her way to work.

I checked the parking lot at the lounge after I got off the bus, another number eight, and she had picked up the car. It’s the only BMW of that color around, a color that Louise really liked when she chose that car. I checked the plate to make sure. I like to be thorough. I stopped inside the front door of the lounge and stood in the lobby by the reception desk to let my eyes adjust to the dim light and to look for Louise. I thought she wouldn’t be expecting me. I guess she wasn’t. She was sitting at a table near the bar with two men. They were talking very intently, heads close together, and didn’t see me. One of the men was Harry. That was a surprise.

The other man I didn’t recognize at first. Then I got a really big surprise. I remembered where I had seen him. It was the cigars he and Louise were smoking that triggered my memory. The place where I had seen him was beside the cigar kiosk at the mall. He was the man with the .38. At that moment the answers to “Who?” and “Why?” became obvious. So did the reason for the insurance. Five seconds later I was out of there and headed for the parking lot.

I don’t know how Louise got home that night. Perhaps Harry drove her. Or the man with the gun. They didn’t find the BMW, anyway, because I have it. Now, in a different state, it’s a different color and has a different plate. They didn’t find my clothes, either, or any clue as to where I am.

I wonder if anybody is paying the premiums on those insurance policies.

Wild Blue Yonder

Charley Pernette sat at a table in the pilots’ room of the Consolidated Flying Training Centre at the Augusta, Maine, airport. He was riffling through the reports of the ground school results for his next student and keeping one eye on the big clock on the wall. Mrs. Evelyn Corli was already 15 minutes late for her appointment for her first flying lesson.

The ground school reports indicated that Mrs. Corli had made barely passing grades in every topic covered except navigation where she had done well. Most students with her marks would have decided against flying and given up. Mrs. Corli, Charley decided, must be a determined woman. But where was she this morning? If she showed no more aptitude for flying than she did at ground school, he was not going to waste time with her.

Rita, the receptionist, stuck her head in the door. “Your student is here, Charley.”

He followed her back to the reception area where a mink-coated woman of indeterminate years was waiting. She was 43, according to her application, but she could have passed for much younger. She slipped off a glove and held out her hand. “Good morning. You must be Mr. Pernette.”

“Call me Charley,” he replied and indicated that she was to follow him down the hall. When they reached the pilots’ room, he waited until she had carefully removed her fur, and found a place to put it safely, obviously somewhat disturbed to find no coat hangers. He noted that she had not invited him to call her Evelyn.

Charley also noticed that she was wearing an obviously expensive tailored suit and pumps to match. He decided to lay the rules on the line.

“Mrs. Corli, I have to tell you that we keep close to our time schedule here. Your appointment was for ten o’clock and it is now twenty minutes past that time.”

“Oh, I
am
sorry,” she interrupted in a low and cultured voice. “I left early enough but dropped into have a cup of coffee with my close friend Louise Sweetland. She’s going through a rather complicated divorce and, well, time just slipped away.”

She smiled. “But is that really important? Can’t we just carry on until the hour is up? I’m paying for it.”

“I have a student at eleven thirty,” Charley replied and there is always a debriefing time after each lesson, so if we are late, that gets everything out of kilter.”

“Debriefing? What exactly does that mean?” she interrupted again.

“That’s a time when we discuss the lesson and I explain things I didn’t have an opportunity to go into while we were in the air, and you get to ask questions about anything you didn’t understand. There won’t be one this morning, because I’m afraid it’s too late for us to have a flying lesson this morning.”

He took a deep breath. “In addition, students are expected to arrive in time to be changed into flying clothing before the lesson begins. That usually takes about fifteen or twenty minutes, so you really need to be here shortly after nine-thirty.”

“Flying clothing? Nobody told me I needed special clothing. What must I wear? When I fly commercial I wear the type of clothing I am wearing now.”

“Pilots of planes like the Cessna one seventy-two we are going to be using wear flying suits like I am wearing, a type of coverall. This is a winter flying suit because it’s early November and it’s made to be warm. Underneath, it’s a good idea to wear long underwear and heavy socks to go with the flying boots.” He stood up to show her what he had on his feet. “In summer, the flying suit is much lighter, and the long underwear isn’t needed.” He smiled. “I’m surprised they didn’t make a point of discussing flight suits at ground school.”

“I guess I missed that part. Ground school didn’t interest me very much. It was very technical.” She smiled again, a rather forced smile, he thought. “I really wouldn’t want to be seen in public in an outfit like that. Airline pilots wear very nice trim uniforms”

“Well, flying a small plane is different, and small planes have been known to make the occasional forced landing and the pilot needs to have clothing that will be warm in that event. The only public you’ll see here will be other pilots and students who will be wearing the same type of clothing, and ground crew who will be wearing rather dirty work coveralls. You would certainly stand out dressed the way you are now. And by the way, I wouldn’t wear that coat. Even though it’s in a locker in the change room, it would be tempting.”

“And where do I get this flying suit and boots?” she asked.

“You can buy them in the clothing shop, just off the reception room. There will be somebody there to help you.”

“Well, if I must, I must,” she sighed. She rose from her chair and carefully picked up her coat. I will be on time tomorrow. That is, if you still want me.”

“Of course I do. I’ll be happy to see you then.”

She kept her promise. The next morning, she arrived in the pilots’ room promptly at ten o’clock, just as Charley was draining his coffee cup. She wore what was obviously a new flying suit and boots, her hair neatly coifed and a large pair of dangling earrings, obviously expensive.

“Good morning Mrs. Corli,” Charley greeted her. “Uh, I think maybe you should remove the earrings. You will be wearing a headset so you can hear the radio from the control tower and also hear me as we fly.”

Without a word, she removed the earrings and placed them in her purse. “It
will
be all right if I take my purse?”

“Oh sure. You can put it on the floor between the front and back seats of the plane. Now this morning,” he began the lesson, “we’ll be doing a take off and climb to altitude of forty-five hundred feet and try some simple manoeuvres. You will get a chance to do some fairly easy flying, just to see how you handle an airplane. I’ll explain as we go along. Okay?”

“Lead on, Charley,” she said, smiling. “I’m excited.”

“Good.” He led the way out to the ramp and up to a small red plane parked on the ramp. When they reached the craft, he said, “This is a Cessna one seventy-two. The first thing we do is called a ‘walk around.’ We make sure the plane is ready to go.”

They walked around the plane and as they went, Charley pointed out the rudder and elevators, moved them with his hand and asked her to do the same. He asked her to tell him what those parts did and she gave satisfactory answers. They also checked the flaps and the ailerons with the same results. Then Charley opened the doors and helped her into the left-hand seat, while he took the right.

Charley said, “Now let’s look at the instrument panel. Eventually you will need to become familiar with every one of the instruments on your side of the panel.”

“Oh my goodness, there are so many.”

“You’ll be surprised at how soon you will know each one as well as you know the dials on the dashboard of your car.” He pointed out each one, including the compass, the artificial horizon, the climb and the turn and bank indicators, the fuel gauge and all the others. Don’t worry about remembering them right now,” he told her. “You’ll get to use them soon enough.”

Charley started up the engine. After letting it run for a moment, he said, “Now the first thing we do is move forward about ten feet and check the brakes. Do you remember where the throttle is—and the brakes?”

She did. He moved the plane forward and stepped on the brakes. “Okay,” he said, and then he called the tower and asked for taxi clearance. He added that they would be flying local for about forty-five minutes.

“November three, eight, zero six, you are cleared to runway thirty-five. The wind is light and variable, altimeter two niner, niner six. I check your exercise.”

“Okay, which way do we turn to get to runway thirty-five?”

Without hesitation, Mrs. Corli said, “Right, and then follow the taxi strip.”

Charley was pleased. When he reached the runway, he stopped short and turned the Cessna parallel to the runway so any landing aircraft would be visible. He handed Mrs. Corli a printed list headed
Pre Take-Off Checklist
. “Your homework will be to memorise this over a period of the next two or three days. Right now you read the first part of the list to me and I will do the check and respond with the answer printed on the list.”

Mrs. Corli glanced at the list and read, “Parking brake.”

“Set.”

“Fuel selector valve.”

“Set.”

“Throttle.”

“Seventeen hundred RPM.”

“Mixture.”

“Rich, until four thousand feet.”

“Magnetos.”

A slight pause. Then, “one twenty drop.”

“Carb heat. What is ‘carb’?”

“The ‘carb’ is short for carburettor and it needs to be warm so the fuel doesn’t freeze in outside air temperature when it gets down around the freezing mark. As we fly higher the air gets colder. Remember that from your ground school weather course?”

“I guess so. But what is a carburettor?”

Charley explained what the carburettor is and what it does. He pointed out the switch to turn the carb heat on and off. When he had finished, he looked at her inquiringly and she nodded, apparently understanding. Getting back to the check list, he said, “The response is ‘on.’”

Charley called the tower and got permission for take-off. Shortly, they were at 4,500 feet and he turned north from the airport.

Then he said, “Now this is important. When I say, ‘I have control,’ you take your hands and feet off the controls immediately. When I say, ‘You have control,’ then you are to do the flying.”

“All right,” Mrs. Corli responded.

“Ok then. You have control.”

To Charley’s amazement, the lady flew like a pro. She kept on course, neither dipping nor rising, just flying straight ahead. He decided to test her.

“Turn right to a course of zero, three, zero,” he said. She did so with no problem, banking slightly as she made the gentle turn. “Now turn right to a course of three, four, five,” he said. “That was a long turn—245 degrees.” Same result. She started to level off as she approached the new course instead of waiting until she got there and overshooting the compass mark.

He was very pleased. Her ability on a first flight was amazing. He had her do more turns, climb to 6,500, change course, descend again to 4,500. She had the idea of starting to level off before they reached the designated altitude without being told.

Incredible
, he thought to himself. It was time to return and she found the right course with no problem.

He called the tower and received landing instructions, “We join the circuit at fourteen hundred feet,” he told her. Down they went and levelled off parallel to the runway, and on his instruction, flew about half a mile south of it. Charley had never allowed a student on a first flight to go this far toward a landing, but she was doing so well, he let her continue.

When they had reached a distance of about a half-mile past the end of the runway, he said, “Now turn left to zero, eight, five. And descend to five hundred feet.” She did. “Now left and see whether you can line up with the runway.”

She lined up perfectly. “I have control,” he said and she immediately complied. He passed her another small sheet of paper, headed
Landing Checks
.

She glanced briefly at the list and read, “Airspeed thirty-five to forty-five.”

“With this light wind, we’ll go at forty-five.” The aircraft slowed noticeably.

“Wing flaps.”

“Down.”

“Air speed on round out, thirty to fifty.”

“Again with this wind, we’ll go in at about fifty.”

After the landing, he explained the way to change to nose wheel steering, and when they had cleared the runway, he said, “You have control.”

Mrs. Corli taxied back to the ramp and parked perfectly. Back in the pilots’ room, Charley said, “That was as close to perfect as anyone could wish Mrs. Corli. Any questions?”

“None that I can think of. I really enjoyed the experience.”

“Good. You did well. I have a question. Why did you think of taking up flying?”

“Well, after my late husband Oscar died, I needed something to take my mind off my troubles, so I thought flying was exciting. And you know what? It is.” Her eyes were sparkling.

After she left, Charley sat for a few minutes and thought about that flight. He scribbled some notes for himself on a sheet and put it in her student file.

The next few lessons were much the same as far as Mrs. Corli’s flying ability was concerned. She made several landings on the second day. On the third day, they practised steep turns, and Charley introduced her to stalls and spins. She performed each manoeuvre flawlessly. When they returned to the ramp, Charley told her not to shut down the engine.

“I think you are ready for your first solo.”

“Really. Oh I hope I do all right.”

“You’ll be fine.”

And she was. The landing was perfect, in spite of the slight crosswind from the right. She landed with the right main gear first and then dropped the left before lowering the nose.

When Charley congratulated her, she twittered, “Oh, I’m so excited. I can hardly wait to tell my friend Louise Sweetland.”

During the next couple of weeks, they took cross-country navigation trips to practice map reading, visited other airports after navigating a three-point course, after which she made similar trips alone. On other days Mrs. Corli did several hours of solo practice for practice in aircraft handing: stalls, spins, steep turns and general flying in different weather conditions.

While she was on one of those solo flights, Charley visited Michael Fremont, his partner in Consolidated Flying Training. He told him about Mrs. Corli and her amazing ability as a new student. He began with the ability she had shown on her first flight and the way she had seemed to know what he might expect her to do next before he could tell her, and how she would follow up with a stupid question.

“Mike, I have a really strong feeling that we are being taken for a ride here. This woman gives every indication that she has flown before.”

He went on to tell Michael that he had started her on the Cessna 172, a plane very seldom used for a beginner. Usually they began on the 150 or 170, tail draggers with very little instrument capability.

“I used that aircraft because her ground school marks were so terrible and her basic knowledge so poor that I figured I would have a good excuse to wash her out right away and not waste my time. She handled the one seventy two like a pro, right from the beginning, but asked the stupidest questions in the beginning. Would you believe that when we first got in the plane, her only questions were about carb heat and the carburettor. Like ‘what’s a carburettor?’ Never a word about any of the instruments or hesitation about turning onto a different compass course. And when I gave her the printed pre take-off checklist and asked her to read it off to me, she hardly looked at the paper. She knew the checklist already. I’m sure of it.”